Passenger walkway/bridges typically lack the ability to load and unload handicapped passengers from the ground surface area. Certainly, airports that invest in mobile elevator and baggage ramps such as that disclosed by the present inventor in U.S. Pat. No. 6,676,359 may be able to drive the ramp system over to a walkway/bridge and connect it so as to board or deboard a handicapped person. However, this is time consuming and could delay aircraft departure time.
In some cases, to bring a portable lift to a bridge area is often not practical as the stairway landing platform may have steel permanent hand rails.
What is needed is a less costly system that is attached to the walkway/bridge with a “cherry picker” type of lifting platform or box, which will allow for immediate boarding or deboarding of the handicapped person. However, where “cherry picker” types of lifts would not allow for maintaining a side-by-side perpendicular relationship with the stairway landing platform without moving the complete lift assembly, what is needed is an apparatus where the personnel box can simultaneously adjust horizontally and vertically without being moved relative to or physically detached from the walkway/bridge. That is, a system where the apparatus has means for raising and lowering the personnel carrier platform such that the personnel carrier platform maintains a generally perpendicular relationship with the ground surface beneath the landing platform as it is being raised and lowered to and from the ground surface from and to an upper portion landing platform of the auxiliary access stairway.
Also, with some lifts currently available with attached stairways such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,676,359, the end of the attached stairway is vulnerable to being hit by moving trained baggage carts, which can cause problems when the lift portion is elevated to the landing level. What is needed is a system that telescopes or collapses out of the way of trained baggage carts when the system is in an elevated mode.